Friday, January 01, 2010

I made the best damn blackeyed peas today. I swear. All vegetarian, low-salt, and nummy.

Take:

The leftovers of a can of low-salt tomatoes, diced

One and one-half bags of frozen blackeyed peas

Half a red onion, minced very finely

A handful of garlic cloves, chopped or not, depending on how garlicky you like your peas

About a teaspoonful of dried thyme, crumbled up in your hands

Enough water to make a soupy mix

...and combine in a large saucepan. Allow to simmer for forty minutes, minimum, and up to two hours (if you forget about it and start doing other things like I did). Eat. Nom!

I just realized that this is my last week on days. I work four days this week, then have four days off, then start nights with the remaining three shifts in *that* week. As a result, I've planned a number of things I can do right when the sun comes up (when I'll be getting home) and overnight, so I can adjust my body clock.

One is work out with Attila. That's a given.

One is yardwork. The stinkin' catalpa tree in the front yard lost all its leaves in one big whump, which means I have gobs of big, flat, nasty, non-decaying leaves all over the front beds. Plus, I have to cut back the butterfly bushes. Plus, I have to find something to put in the front pots. Bare pots with dead things in them are bad mojo on your front steps.

One is cooking*. All night long if necessary, interspersed with the books I plan to pick up on Monday from the used bookstore. If I need to, I can even refinish my dining room table over the course of a night, in order to stay awake.

I'm planning sausage-and-poblano-stuffed chicken breasts, Russian sour cream coffee cake, several different kinds of bread (not all for me, sadly), a lasagne to freeze, and maybe some of the trickier recipes from Cooks dot com, like tiramisu. If you have any time-consuming, niggly, detail-laden, and ultimately delicious, lunch-packable recipes to share, feel free to email me. Link is to the right.

I might even make biriyani without the spice mix: instead, mixing up my own spice mix.

Roast poblanos in oven or better yet, on gas flame until charred and soft. Put in plastic bag and seal to steam peppers. After 5 minutes or so, remove peppers, scrape skin, remove core and seeds and dice.

Mash potatoes w/ fork or mixer and stir in peppers and goat cheese (as much or little as you like). Add pine nuts, cumin and cinnamon to taste.

Heat skillet and place flour tortilla in skillet until warm. Put enough filling to cover half the tortilla and fold. Cook for a minute or two on each side. Cut into thirds for serving and serve warm. Save filling and tortillas separately for leftovers.

My mentor fresh out of nursing school, she who put in NG tubes with her eyes closed "to visualize the anatomy" (and her pts never winced, honest, it was a beautiful thing) always said that the key to night shift is hydration. Admittedly, she must have had an amazing bladder. Her other thing was focusing on "resting", no pressure to sleep during the day because sometimes it happens and sometimes you just can't. I never sleep before my first night shift (if I do, I can't sleep the next day). Best wishes.